334 The American Scene in House with. an the Metropolitan Opera th great fang Produced ed out of sight. Many other Americans tooy ‘ob se Hpac, 9 young Arian Begining t comp Pm soni tured as naturally 10 Debussy’s idiom as hire th Tey yer med 0 STRAY, ry penne bem’. Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) most gifted among American Impressionists was sectemma isms ft pint Gemmany atthe age of nineteen, His four yeas in Berlin bowel © into contact with a ich musical culture. Upon his retum he arent teaching job ata boys preparatory school in Tarrytown, New ft His chores at the Hackley School interfered seriously with his cor posing, but he was never able to escape; he remained ther inane death. Recognition finally came to Griffes in the last year of hi when is works were accepted for performance by the ostomy Ne York, and Philadelphia orchestras. The Pleasure Dome of Kubla ine’ presented by the Boston Symphony in its home city and in Ney York, scored a triumph. A few days later, the accumulated stncy years took its toll; Grffes collapsed. The doctors diagnosed hy illness as pleurisy and pneumonia; the deeper cause was physic and nervous exhaustion. He failed to rally after an operation on ha Jungs and died in New York Hospital at the age of thirty-six Gaitfes represents the current in American music most song oriented to foreign influence. His dreamlike art could not be nun tured by indigenous folk song. A nostalgic yeaming, a gently elegix quality informs his music. Stimulated by far-off places and rene times, his imagination tumed to moods and fancies rooted in romn tic longing. He admired the composers who at that time were aac. ing the attention of progressive musicians—Debussy, Ravel, Mu sorgsky and Scriabin, Busoni, Stravinsky, Schoenberg. Another liberating influence was his preoccupation with the music ofthe fir East Griffes's fame rests on a comparatively small output. He favored the short lyric forms. Songs like By a Lonely Forest Pathway and Tht Lament of lan the Proud reveal a lyricist of exquisite sensibility. He was no less successful with the short piano piece and brought © Charles tves 335 iano music a subtlety of nuance that had hitherto been “american Por ng the French composers. Characteristic are the Three ound Only 2 The Lake at Evening, The Night Winds, and The Vale of roe Piette“ 1912); and the Four Roman Sketches—The White Pea- reams cern The Fountain of Acqua Pala, and Clouds (1915-1916. cock, Nigh ft works, the most important are The Pleasure Donte of ‘Of the ore (1912), the Poem for flute and orchestra (1918), and The Kubla Khan 1” which Griffes transcribed for orchestra, White Peace, me of Kubla Khan was inspired by the visionary The Pletroridge: “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately plessure- em oe Griffes gave his imagination free rein, he stated, dome de<7* on of Kubla Khan's strange palace. "The vague, fogay inthe deste iggests the sacred river, running ‘through caverns mea- beginning Shen down to a sunless sea.’ The gardens with fountains surless Toy spots of greenery’‘are next suggested. From inside come and sy dancing and revelry which increase to a wild climax and sounds Glienly break off. There is a retum to the original mood then ting the sacred river and the ‘caves ofice.'”” ice of his gifts. But the vision of beauty which formed the sub roms chis art, and the fastidious craftsmanship he attained in the saretion of that vision, were of prime importance tothe evolution Prour native school. 46 Charles Ives (1874-1954) teary n muse to of confused with somthing hat et te ase Back nan ‘aoc ny sounds ht we ar dt ont ther an fora eon we Stoned to cl them beni que, when anew o nf work = {Spcd steal on tit heating, andamentl quit neha nds pt ‘Semin oan” foday he ‘Charles Edward Ives waited many years for recognition. Today stands revealed as the first truly American composer of the twentieth century and one of the most original spirits of his time.336 The American Scene His Life Ives was bor in Danbury, Connecticut. His father had beg bandmasterin the Civil War and continued his calling in civiiein George Ives was the ideal father for anyone who was to bone experimental composer. He was a singularly progresive mores? with endless curiosity about the nature of sound. He listened fully to church bells; and when he found that he could not dupis their pitch on the piano, he built an instrument that would pry tones “in the cracks between the keys""—that is, quarter tone, Oye made his family sing Swance River in the key of E-fat while played the accompaniment in the key of C, “in order,” his on att ‘wrote, “to stretch our ears and strengthen our musical minds." Charles at thirteen held a job as church organist and already wa aanging music forthe various ensembles conducted by His the At twenty he entered Yale, where he studied composition with Hex tio Parker, Ives's talent for music asserted itself throughout his oy years at Yale; yet when he had to chobse a career he decided agains professional life in music. “Assuming a man lives by himself nd with no dependents, he might write music that no one would play prettily, isten to or buy. But—but ifhe has a nice wife and some vie children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances? $> he has to weaken (and if he is a man he should weaken for his chi! dren) but his music more than weakens—it goes ‘tata’ for money! Bad for him, bad for music!” Ives thus began by assuming that soc- ety would not pay him for the kind of music he wanted to write. He ‘was not mistaken He therefore entered the business world, Two decades ltr he ‘as head of the largest insurance agency in the country. The yearsit {ook him to achieve this success—roughly from the time he was twenty-two to forty-two—were the years when he wrote his music He composed at night, on weekends, and during vacations, working fr tolation, concemed only to set down the sounds he heard in his 08 ‘The few conductors and performers whom he tried to interest fis works pronounced them unplayable. Some smiled, persuaded {hat Such writing could come only from one who was ignorant of the Fadiments, Others, accustomed to the suavities of the Postromatic Renod, concluded that the man was eracked, He was indeed, Aen Copland called him, “a genius in a wasteland.” Alter @ yumber of these rebuffs Ives gave up showing his manuscip Charles Ives 337 Charles ives. When he felt he need to hear how his music sounded, he hited afew maslns to ran though work Sve orthere rand aad uate performances, Ives heard his music only in hs imagination, Epaued hi weyundeected an re, pling wp on soe afer arother in his barn in Connecticut. When well-meaning friends 995, fested that he try to write musi that people would ike, be so ‘only retort, “I can’t do it—I hear something else!” Or, i frustration, “ on wrong?” composer Ives's double ir ace besness executive by Ay and compos by Sigh fialy took its al In 1918, when he was fos) fou he sulered = Physical breakdown that left his heat damaged. The years of wore warded effort had taken more out of him emotionally338 The American Scene suspected. although he ed almost forty years longer, he nothing further of imy fessional musicians was irrevocably closed to his idea he owed it to his music to make it available to those less hidebound. He therefore had the Concord Sonata vately printed, ako the Ess Before # Sonata kin yam note that presented the essence of his views on life ana were distributed free of charge to libraries, music critics, and wht ever else asked for them, caused nota ripple as far asthe public ny concemed. But they gained Ives the support of other experiment, composes who were toggling to make their way in an need ‘world. Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger, and Nicolas Sionsay espoused his cause, as did the critic Paul Rosenfeld. Signitcan Iwes's music first won attention in Europe. Slonimsky conduc three movements from Holidays in Paris, Budapest, and Bede Anton Webem presented his work in Vienna. The tide finally twncd in this country when the American pianist John Kirkpatrick, a « recital in Town Hall in January, 1939, played the Concord Sonata, Ive was then sixty-five. The piece was repeated several weeks later by Kirkpatrick and scored a triumph. The next morning Lawrence Gil man hailed the Concord Sonata as “the greatest music composed by an American.” Ives had already begun to exert a salutary influence upon the Younger generation of composers, who found in his arta realization of their own ideals. Now he was “discovered” by the general public and hailed asthe grand old man of American music. In 1947 his Third Symphony achieved performance and won a Pulitzer Prize. This story of belated recognition was an item to capture the imagination and ‘was canied by newspapers throughout the nation. Ives awoke 3 Seventy-three to find himself famous, Four years later the Second Symphony was presented to the public by the New York Philhar Bee, éxactly half a century after it had been composed. Leonard Eemstein, who conducted the piece, remarked, "We have suddesly covered our musical Mark Twain, Emerson and Lincoln all lee trans ne the Prospect of finally hearing the work agitated the old ‘man; he attended neither the rehearsals nor the performances. He wag ewever, one of millions who listened to the radio broadcas- He died in New York City thre yeas later, at the age of eh Producey World ofp, S. He felt tha, Who might be for piano pr. 1d Of elaborate Charles toes 339 is Music sjes Ives, both as man and alist, was rooted in the New En- Grane age inthe tration of plain living and high thinking that gland Pefjower in the idealism of Hawthorne and the Alcotts, Emer- came © Hevea, The sOurces of his tone imagery are to be found in sonand Thesie of his childhood: hymn tunes and popular songs, the ling Mind at holiday parades, the fiddlers at Saturday night the town ltuotic songs and sentimental parlor ballads, the melodies cancetinen Foster, and the medleys heard at county fairs and in sa neath of Ainerican music had attracted other musicians be- dative, But they, subservient to European canons of taste, had owed 0 soothe ot and Yeone” thee poplar anes cord hhad absorbed in Leipzig or Munich. Ives was 35 ng the a vionce te the European tation as as Walt Whit tei doen car caugit the sound of untutored voles singing 0 fyma together, some in their eagemess straining and sharping the ch others just missing it and lating; so that in place ofthe single tone there was a cluster of tones that made a deliciously dissonant Chord. Some were a trifle ahead of the beat, others lagged behind: ie igen a Daughters ofthe tw g Vigan Tein ‘Gran Wood 1892—1942) drew his imagery from a welt of 4 established a style distinctly rooted in American Wisory. Heecltion, 1882. Cincimati Art Museum—The Es Memorial, (Courtesy Associated American Artists, NY.)